Goddess Rises Again in San Francisco

CURRENTS

A group of Chinese students from San Francisco’s Academy of Art College have re-created the “Goddess of Democracy” statue that was bulldozed by Chinese government troops during the June 4, 1989, massacre in Tian An Men Square.

“By bringing back to life a work of art that totalitarians tried to kill, we are making a statement about universal human rights,” said Tom Marsh, a professional sculptor and academy instructor who worked with the students on the project. “If the Chinese people can see a bronze statue of the Goddess of Democracy, they can see some hope for a democratic China.”

The eight-foot clay and bronze statue is scheduled to be installed next year in San Francisco’s Chinatown, but its creators say they hope to one day erect the statue in San Francisco’s sister city, Shanghai.

THE SCENE

A publication party for the new, revamped Framework magazine, which is produced three times a year by the L.A. Center for Photographic Studies, will be held on Tuesday from 7-9 p.m. at Meyers/Bloom Gallery in Santa Monica.

“We couldn’t pay the artists, so we thought we’d throw a party for them instead,” said LACPS director Suzy Kerr, who said of the new framework, “We’re now using many more artists and we’re much less theoretical.” The new issue, which will be available for $5 at the party and at LACPS’ downtown gallery, is devoted to the theme of censorship and features works by 10 writers and 21 artists, including such well-known persons as Amy Gerstler, Harry Gamboa, Tim Miller and Joy Silverman.

The party will also be used to kick off LACPS’ membership drive and will be the first viewing of the organization’s 1990-91 Patron Prints, which will be given to those donating $250 or more to the organization. The prints were created by Elizabeth Bryant, Jerry Burchfield, Robert Dawson, Anne Fishbein, Judy Fiskin, Robbert Flick and Leland Rice. Information: (213) 482-3566.

Santa Monica’s Daniel Weinberg Gallery is holding a special exhibition through Aug. 25 to benefit the Children’s AIDS Project. Featured in the show are small sculptures, works on paper and prints by 100 artists including Jonathan Borofsky, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, Robert Longo, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ed Moses and Ed Ruscha. All proceeds from the show will go to New York’s Harlem Hospital for the care of children and their mothers suffering from AIDS.

DEBUTS

The first solo exhibition in Los Angeles of works by Belgian sculptor Fred Eerdekens opens Saturday at Santa Monica’s Dorothy Goldeen Gallery. Eerdekens’ wall sculpture is closely linked to visual poetry, and when illuminated, casts a shadow on the walls on which it is hung thus spelling out words or a series of words. The show runs through Sept. 1.

One hundred new Korean genre paintings by the renowned contemporary artist Yong-hwan Kim are being shown for the first time in the United States in a new exhibition at the Korean Cultural Service gallery through Aug. 8. The watercolor paintings focus on the everyday lives of Korean people in pre-modern times, and are in direct contrast to the more formal and prescribed depictions of Confucian bureaucrats and ceremonies.

The first West Coast gallery exhibition of works by Spanish-born, New York-based artist Jose De Creeft, who died in 1982 at the age of 97, is at Louis Newman Galleries in Beverly Hills through Wednesday. The show features both drawings and sculpture by De Creeft, whose works are represented in many collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

ETC.

The Long Beach Museum of Art has received two National Endowment for the Arts grants totaling $32,000. The larger, $20,000 grant will be used to purchase “He Weeps for You,” an early video installation by reknowned artist Bill Viola, and the remaining $12,000 will go for improvements in the storage and collection maintenance facilities at the museum’s Media Arts Center . . . Also receiving two NEA grants (totaling $9,000) is the Laguna Art Museum, which will use the funds to conserve three oil paintings by the late California artists William Keith, Marius Dahlgren and Karl Yens, and to support the upgrading of the museum’s storage of some 500 works on paper contained in its permanent collection. . . . The Laguna Art Museum has extended its Friday evening hours to 8 p.m. through the end of August, and the San Diego Museum of Art has extended its Thursday hours to 7:30 p.m. throughout the summer.